Wednesday, October 29, 2014

What Listening to a Story Does to Our Brains

Our brains become more active when we tell and listen to stories.

If we listen to a PowerPoint presentation with boring bullet points, certain parts in the brain get activated. Scientists call these Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area. Overall, it hits our language processing parts in the brain, where we decode words into meaning. And that’s it, nothing else happens.

When we are being told a story, though, things change dramatically. Not only are the language processing parts in our brain activated, but any other area in our brain that we would use when experiencing the events of the story are too.

A story can put our whole brain to work!

And it gets better! When we tell stories that have helped us shape our thinking to others, they will experience the same effect! The brains of the person telling a story AND listening to it, can synchronize. By simply telling a story, you can plant ideas, thoughts and emotions into the listeners’ brains. Anything you’ve experienced, you can get others to experience the same, or at least, get the same areas of their brain to be active, too.

A story is the only way to activate parts in the brain so that a listener turns the story into their own idea and experience.

Why does the format of a story, where events unfold one after the other, have such a profound impact on our learning? The simple answer is this: We are wired that way! A story, if broken down into the simplest form, is a connection of cause and effect. And that is exactly how we think!

Whenever we hear a story, we want to relate it to one of our existing experiences. While we are busy searching for a similar experience in our brains, we activate a part called insula, which helps us relate to that same experience of pain, joy, disgust or else. Everything in our brain is looking for the cause and effect relationship of something we’ve previously experienced. A story is the only way to activate parts in the brain so that the listener turns the story into their own idea and experience.

This is some powerful information for teachers. While we've always known that telling stories can make what we teach more investing and memorable for students, realizing the science behind why this is so makes this long-used teaching tool only that much more effective!

Understanding why something works is the key to making it work even better! And this leads leads me to my next great teaching find...

So then what does all of this mean?

Well, if the Secret Stories® were a cake, the above list of ingredients would make up its creamy center, and the fact that they're "secrets" makes up the yummy frosting on top!

And here's why...

1. Simplicity

The Secret are simple because the "goal of the game" is not in telling them, but in USING them to read and to write... and the brain research shows that the simpler the story, the more likely it will stick.

2. Unexpectedness

The brain loves novelty in all forms: unusual noises, extreme motions, exaggerated body gestures—all of which are infused into the telling of the Secrets!

3. Concreteness

We remember best what can be seen, touched, heard and personally experienced. Knowing the Secrets about the letters and their sounds allows learners to experience them as realistic and familiar, with logically associated actions and behaviors that are readily predictable.

4. Credibility

Because the Secrets explain what letters do when they're not doing what they should, sounds that might otherwise appear random are now easily accounted for. (Think of the Secrets as a sort of "cheat-sheet" for the best-betting odds in Las Vegas!) Knowing the letters' "secrets" means knowing how they will behave in given scenarios, and thus, the most likely sounds they will make. This inside-knowledge equips even the youngest of learners to easily work through various sound options for letters in text, so as to quickly assess their most likely, next-most likely, and "if all else fails" sound alternatives!

5. Emotions

Emotions and feelings are what motivates our actions and behaviors, and the letters are no different! Learners who know their Secrets can easily relate and empathize with their actions and behaviors, thus making their sounds readily predictable, even in unfamiliar text.

6. Stories

(This one's obvious!)

Do you use stories to teach concepts in your classroom?

If so, I would love to hear about it! And I hope that by incorporating the"SUCCES"(without the last 'S!') strategies, your stories can become evenmore powerful teaching tools!

"Mrs. Mac Moments"

I just love receiving these little clips that capture student discoveries of Secret Storiesthroughout the instructional day! These minute-long video clips are from Mrs. Mac's Class (a.k.a. Renee McAnulty from Cottonwood Elementary in Hesperia, California).

This little first grader was so excited to share her "secret"discoveries in writing! (I especially love the idea they came up with to "dot" the i!

And the little guy in these next two clips (which I'd actually received last month but am just now posting!) is using the Secrets to decode unfamiliar words in a beginning Level A reader during guided reading.

I especially LOVE the questions Ms. Mac asks in this second clip about his thinking-process with regard to theSecretstrategies he's using to decode the text!

And I also received a specialHalloween-treat from some VERY creative kindergarten teachers in Frederick County, Virginia, who surprised their students this Halloween by dressing up as the SECRET STORIES Superhero Vowels®!

Katie Garner, M.Ed.(author of
the best-selling book, Secret Stories® Cracking
the Reading Code with the Brain in Mind!) is an internationally known
speaker, author and literacy consultant with over twenty years of combined,
early grade classroom experience and a passion for infusing neuroscience into
literacy and learning. Her "backdoor-to-the-brain" approach to phonics
skill acquisition via the affective (feeling) domain shifts the paradigms
associated with beginning reading skill instruction and has gained national
recognition with the No Child Left Behind, Reading First, and RTI Initiatives. As
a featured and keynote speaker at educational conferences across the
United States and abroad— including an ongoing keynote series at the Vulnerable
Readers Summits with North American literacy leaders, Dr. Richard Allington (What Really Matters for Struggling Readers)
and Dr. Anne Cunningham (The National
Early Literacy Panel ”NELP” Report)— Katie shares
"brain-changing" strategies for boosting existing reading curriculum
and phonics instruction with the latest neural research showing how our
brains learn best. Her practical and proven methods for bringing neuroscience
into the forefront of literacy learning have been shared in both lecture and panel
discussions at Harvard University and MIT as part of the Learning and the Brain
Conference and Research Consortium, and are the subject of an upcoming professional
development series.